Sasamiya's guide book rant: a bit upsetting

Sasaki to Miyano is a very casual read, a simple, cliche BL story with gorgeous art and interesting main characters that hooks out from beginning to the end of the romance and gets you to a satisfying conclusion.

But to a person who's been hooked in this silly story like I'm committing substance abuse, the real key of Sasaki to Miyano's storytelling are its side characters, and I am not happy about what I found.

The Slice of Life genre, and consequentely shoujo manga/BL manga tend to rely on the side cast for most of its lighter moments: jokes, exposition and expanding the story.

Harusono-sensei has a habit of discreetly releasing the lore of these side characters in contexts that extrapolate her main manga story unless said lore has influence over one of her MCs.

Merch products with little story snippets, captions for her birthday art posts, little comments over her Fanbox exclusive livestreams, artbooks, light novels and Volume Extras all paint this interesting landscape of characters much richers than you'd firstly assume when picking up SasaMiya or HiraKagi to read for the first time, and as an avid fan of this Manga Universe she's built, I was anxiously waiting for the SasaMiya guidebook in hopes of getting to know one of her most recent additions to her cast: Shirahama Kyouji.

Offically debuting in the manga by chapter 42, Shirahama was previously established as Tashiro's childhood friend from the basketball club in the First Year's Novel. In 2019, when Tashiro's birthday art was posted, his name was revealed to the readers for the first time through a quote-retweet from Harusono clarifying that no, she had not invented a character out of the blue, this guy's always been Tashiro's companion. In 2020, he made another appearance in his friend's birthday art, later then becoming an established member of Miyano's now group of four friends.

In the guidebook, like she does with all her side characters, Harusono establishes his gimmick: Shirahama is a boy who wants to be popular with girls and is upset at his state of perpetual loneliness.

His current function in the story is to be the one guy who's more aware of romantic social cues, considering Kuresawa's is constantly talking about his girlfriend, Miyano is the main character who's dating for the first time and Tashiro is...

What the fuck is Tashiro doing?

Being the guy with no girlfriend was Tashiro's thing at the start! He's the one whos compained about wanting to live some kind of high school romance even if he studied in an All Boy's School (ie: the Bazaar Drama CD), he's the guy who was afraid his friends would leave him for their S/O's.

By Shirahama's official debut I started noticing a process I could only call "straight man-fication" of Tashiro's character. The author quite literally transferred his gag to Shirahama.

I abhor this decision with my whole heart, not because I don't believe Tashiro can be anything but a funny character, on the contrary, he's proved in both his novel chapters that he can be interesting and funny, specially if he's interacting with his narrative foil.

Enter Hanzawa and the contradictions of his hinted romance storyline

Harusono has established pretty well who Hanzawa is by the latter half of SasaMiya, her most developed side character apart from Hirano, who has his own manga, his family issues and his overall aversion to romance when it came to his own life made for an interesting one-time side character beyond his gimmicks with the rest of the cast.

Hanzawa's role in Tashiro's chapter in the First Years LN is to guide him into believing he can and wants to be responsible for something for once. Tashiro's role in Hanzawa's later development is to show him there's need for balance in everything and that the man deserves to rest for a while instead of trying to work his brain into repressing his personal issues.

This is a fine dynamic on its own and that, in my honest opinion, never needed to be turned into the hinted romance the manga has been giving us in the newest appearances of these characters. In the guide book, these two characters gain a whole pages long fully colored extra about the two of them missing each other.

Tashiro doesn't feel like himself when he's nostagically reminiscing the departure of his upperclasmen, his internal monologue feels divorced from the guy we cam to associate with a carefree and lighter nature. But that's fine, isn't it? Giving the carefree guy a serious moment is a classic Anime Character Development move.

Tashiro's been serious before, in moments mostly associated with Hanzawa and with worrying about him (the Movie extra where he gives him a juice bottle).

What bothers me the most is what Hanzawa becomes here.

In this guide book comic, Hanzawa's attachment to his high school life is comically exaggerated as he repeatedly refuses to leave his classroom at the last day before the Third Year's graduation ceremony and has to be forcefully dragged by Hirano.

When these two out of pocket moments for these characters appear associated with each other by matching internal monologues, they feel OOC to me.

I do not think Hanzawa's story needs a romance. I absolutely do not think Tashiro's pair should be his overachiever upperclassman.

I think Harusono's haste is apparent when you look at what these two characters became and associate it with Shirahama's persistent appearances in the story. It feels contradictory to all these established characters, but specially unfair to Shirahama, since his role in the narrative as Tashiro's companion is lost and he becomes a flanderized mess of exposition dialogue and Miyano's personal tutorial to dating life.

Not the first time she does that to a character, don't get me started on my poor boy Ogasawara.

If the guide book's a guide to anything that's bound to happen in SasaMiya's last volume and the upcoming spin-off, I don't think Hanzawa and Tashiro (or poor Shirahama, he doesn't deserve this) are on a good path.

I love SasaMiya and this has not hindered my enjoyment of the series at all, but it does hurt a bit, specially considering their individual potential.

smokey eyes by lincoln but its andreil

i doubt anyone is going to fully read through this, but i like to song analyze. i like to take songs i find and explain why i’ve added them to my aftg playlists. this first song i’m going to “explain”, i suppose, is smokey eyes by lincoln. it’s added to neil’s playlist.

The first verse is as follows:

Smokey eyes, are you feeling good?

For now, you’re here with me

Seems like we’ve waited long enough

For someone else to make us feel complete

It’s not a bitter flavor, and it’s not a sweeter drink

I’m scared to ask you if you would do the same for me

at the beginning of whatever this thing with andrew is, neil believes that he is not important at all to andrew. he thinks that andrew doesn’t care as much as he himself does. but he’s okay with that; he’s gonna die by the end of the year anyways, so might as well have a good time. but still, it hurts. ‘are you feeling good?’—he wants to make andrew happy like andrew makes him feel happy. he wants to make andrew feel safe like andrew makes him feel safe. and for fucks sake, they HAVE waited long enough to feel happy and complete. they haven’t had anything like… THIS… their whole lives. and what they have, it isnt stereotypically sweet, but it isn’t in any means bad or bitter. it works out for them, and that’s what matters. and he cares so much about andrew that it hurts, it almost tears him apart to suddenly care about anyone but himself, but he doesnt think andrew cares back and is too scared to ask.

Smokey eyes; that’s your name, isn’t it?

At least that’s what I call you

When I call you, do you shake the way I shake

When I call to say I’m through?

“No, I shake the way you do at shows

So people know you’re cool

Violently, but still controlled enough to screw.”

you cannot tell me neil doesn’t come up with nicknames for andrew. my favorite head canons come from when neil is sleepy and calls andrew ‘drew and i get so weak reading them. as for the shaking part, its like neil’s saying ‘if i called to end it, whatever this thing is, i would be heartbroken and shaking from the anxiety and pain of it all. would you?’ and the only answer he can imagine coming back is that andrew doesnt care, and that all he was was a cheap fuck, because in the beginning that’s all andrew dares to show.

now, after the hotel in baltimore scene, he thinks andrew cares at this point. why else would andrew have fought for him to stay? but we all know how absolutely fucking oblivious neil can be. when he’s with aaron at the cabin during their vacation, he expresses he doesn’t believe andrew would care enough to do anything drastic for him. he genuinely believes that if aaron asked andrew to drop neil, that andrew would in order to keep his promise.

cut to the chorus of the song:

So help me make amends with all my friends

Most other people are just dead ends

There’s nothing worse than making friends

again, after baltimore, he knows andrew cares, but he doesnt know what to do about it or how exactly to cope with this revelation. if andrew cares, then it can’t be that much, right? because what could neil josten, a made up character and personality, have to offer to any of the foxes? yet he needs to make amends with the foxes. they’re all he has, and leaving them would break his heart. he is basically begging andrew not to send him away, begging wymack to let him stay. he wants to make amends, and most people who he’s tried to trust have just hurt him, so they’re dead ends. he hates that he’s attached because what could be worse than getting attached? but he cares, and he wants to fix it, fix this. he knows lying to them was wrong and he thinks the foxes will shun him because he’s the son of the butcher and also the yakuza is not just after kevin but him as well. he hates that he’s attached, but he is, and he wants to fix it.

Sticky thighs, are you wild now or just a memory?

Some people want to be your friend

Some people just want to be free

And the worst thing about me is that I’m somewhere in between;

I might miss you, but I’m still trying to get clean

‘some ppl wanna be ur friend’, the upperclassmen do attempt to include andrew in things, a lot more after neil kinda coaxes them to but the same nonetheless. it’s not easy trying to include the monsters, but neil’s relationship with both “sides” of the team are important to him, so each side tries their best to at least attempt to get along. ‘some ppl just want to be free’ ie aaron. aaron wanted out of the deal but didn’t know how to really get around it. nicky wanted to be more friendly with the upperclassmen but was held back by andrew’s rules. and neil, he’s somewhere in between. he wants to be (boy)friends with andrew, but he also still has this feeling of wanting to run, to leave before andrew leaves, and when he thinks of leaving he misses andrew but he’s also just trying to do what he thinks is best for both of them.

You’ve had enough to drink

You know you’re drowning in the flavor of

Cough syrup and Vicodin

You’ve got the bitter flavor down so

Dab the sweeter drink on a napkin, then

Hold it up to your mouth so you can sleep

andrew usually doesn’t get drunk, as he states he knows his limits, but he totally does when he’s really upset and isn’t gonna be driving. for instance, after a rough game without his meds he would be rewarded with alcohol from wymack. in the author’s notes, there’s a scene where andrew goes to wymack’s apartment to talk about neil and he chugs alcohol then, too. whether he’s able to admit it or not, andrew abuses alcohol as a way to cope. this lyric, to me, alludes to the use of drugs or drinks to cope.

Quiet lies that you’re telling to

Those black and screaming skies...

I hope you’re walking around campus

Contemplating your own smallish size

This is not what all my idols told me college would be like

I hope someday you learn to take your own advice

the quiet lies are in the blank stares, the flat expressions, the mean words and obvious apathy. andrew’s apathy keeps him safe, but neil sees through it. he knows its a lie. he’s knows that there’s more to this misunderstood monster and he wants to learn all about it. he hopes that andrew is able to think about bigger things, even when neil isnt there to try and get him to. he hopes andrew isn’t as impassive as he tries to make others believe. he hopes, and truly believes, that somewhere in there, andrew cares about neil.

furthermore, college is nothing like its made out to be. college, for neil, has been both hell and heaven. he never thought he’d even end up going, let alone go to play exy of all things. andrew is always giving neil advice, but he never follows any of it himself. andrew is all about getting neil to open up to him, but is hesitant to open up as well. neil understands, but he also hopes andrew warms up to him a bit. he enjoys their trust for trust relationship and genuinely wishes that one day andrew will be okay. maybe not good, but okay. because that’s a start.

and, scene.

thank you for reading if you read this far! i’ll probably end up doing more, tbh, because i really enjoy writing these. that’s all for now, though!

By Izaak E. Wolfe

PUPILS OF THE ALCHEMIST- Preface Authors Note: “Life is for those of us whom are already dead, and if you comprehend this notion, then you too must be stuck in the ‘ether’. In unison, many of your pseudo-peers may at once begin to nod their heads, attempting to hurry along whatever point it is that you’re trying to make, because using their own thoughts is usually too mentally taxing. Following an obligatory smile with a nod whilst sprouting gleaming pleasantries such as “oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean!” with not a thought in their skull but what they’re having for lunch. Autonomous white Rabbits full of hollow, all essentially doppelgangers: Clones cut from the same cookie-cutter cloth of which Lewis Carroll pulled the wool over Alice's eyes. The very same rodents that are oft caught ‘running late’ wasting precious seconds digging holes until they fall asleep in one, killing time until they drop. You will come to know them well. The kind of under prepared, over opinionated personalities that might read through every book in an entire library just to get to the end of every sentence, staring through ripe meaning and symbolic psychic puzzles, not to ponder, or provoke thought, and certainly not to explore the realms of scribes and oracles in a place that can never be defined: understanding words merely as distractions, the kind of mind that would buy a bar napkin if it were leather-bound just so they could say they've got it on their bookshelf. These are the dreamers. They rarely, if ever, awaken. I for one, have always been of the opinion that when free from the burden of earthly interruptions the human brain starts to unlock dream like visionary experiences, Deja Voo and insights far more significant in nature and depth than what can be found tossing and turning, blurred by the restrictions of ‘sleep’. " Charles Luna Foxx 2016 

 Chapter One

 “The Heart that told no tales..” My smirk falls flat to molten hell. Disturbed by signs of life, I gasped to earth. “Ughh…” The phone was ringing. You can bet I was ignoring it. My breath smelt like I had spent Valentine’s Day French kissing an ashtray. Finding my own feet stumbling like a rigid rag-doll off my favorite chair; a heavy head was snatched from swollen hands. Temples pounding, Teeth grinding: Last night is stuck on that damned black-box flight recorder… Here, renegade neuro-terrorist’s commit espionage against their own life source. Receptor sites planning to pull the plug on grey matter that is the only thing integrating them with awareness. They will stop at nothing to destroy any and all traces of the last 24 hours. Direct orders from suits in the cerebral cortex were to “swipe magnets on the audio tapes”. Perhaps in the grip of some advanced interrogation, these sadistic rhetorical sabotage methods employed by our hideous obligatory enemies are indeed working, using some of the most effective tools of self-destruction that our hedonistic Universe has to offer, such as Amphetamines and Tennessee Whisky. Memory pulls a blank, and a glance around the study leads me to a solitary conclusion; this hangover is only just beginning to show its putrid mug shot. The stiff neck and near total absence of writing on the pile of pages beneath my jaw seems to indicate that I passed out colder than a corpse in the Arctic. It would not take the likes of “Sherlock Holmes” to conclude that I was neck deep in the narcissistic floodwaters of Moonshine misery, with not a bridge left to burn in my hearts splintered drought. After countless hours awake at the writing desk, with a brain so sore and sorry it all but caved in to intoxicant fueled hibernation: The empty bottle of Jack adjacent to my puddle of drool confirming this hypothesis. I greet today with a smile. A smile so big and fake that hopefully it conceals my gnawing sense of spite for all existence, or at least my dental plan. When I see the light it never hesitates to scorch my prying eyes, so I still wonder why people stare at shiny things like headlights to a frozen deer. Head spinning. Reeking of liquor, don’t know up from left on a compass, so bed ways is right ways right now. In a sloth like manner, I half tiptoe as if my own shadows footsteps were going to stamp out any hope that may be hiding, still virgin to the stench of bitter fate, in the far off shadows of a distant peaceful galaxy. So I tear the blinds shut, eat some sleeping pills, and before I could even say “fuck off world." BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP Slamming my fist against the ‘snooze’ button, I hissed as if there was someone listening: “..YOU KNOW I AM AWAKE YOU SADISTIC TIME KEEPING BEATBOX! Ughh!!”. With my face buried into my pillow, I try and think of one reason why I should get back out of bed. Whiskey is certainly not one of them. If I didn’t have college, I swear to GOD I would have thrown that fucking alarm clock out the window. I must admit, I became extremely depressed and aimless after the death of my father, and even though it was up to me to become the life blood of the family butcher shop (pun intended), I decided to shut the place down. I can barely get to sleep at night, especially not to wake up at 4 30 every morning to chop up bits of flesh and bone, elbow deep in entrails before midday. I couldn’t do it, and after the Dean tuned from a clockwork intellectual to madder than a fuckin’ hatter overnight... I’ve only been attending classes where the new girl sits opposite me. The rest of my lectures I frequently skip to “study” in the dark corners of the universities extensively cluttered library. It is more than coincidence that I have taken up a few of the classes that this enigmatic temptress frequents. From day one, it was apparent that she has an obsessive thirst to master any and all of the subjects she chose, with the outcome or topic seemingly being of a lesser importance to her than that of the process itself. So it was Anatomy, Biology, Chemistry, Taxidermy, Psychology, Latin, Surrealist Art, even the optional extracurricular sessions such as Cryptography and Journalism, 5 days a week. I don’t know why I didn’t drop out and get a job in the town Abattoir, the pay is good, and I don’t have a weak stomach. But I’m glad that I don’t live in that meat hook reality. Not wanting to miss a second of her company, even though we were strangers, I had a cold shower, got dressed, and hurried to the University, with a terrible headache, but the promise of a new day was not yet lost. I was haphazardly piecing together a port-folio, and I look up and our eyes met, and quickly flicked back to our “work”. There it came, and oh my, this was the first time I had heard her voice, and at once I was drowning in Ambrosia honey from the swarming beehive of my mind. “Hello” The beautiful stranger was smiling at me. “Have you seen the golden scarab??” she inquired under her breath, looking almost as if she had asked me the time… “..Oh I.. I.. Uh…I beg your Pardon?” She repeated once more, barely above a whisper. “Have you seen the Golden Scarab?” her eyes locked firmly onto mine. Unsure what she was referring to, shaking my head, “Sorry.” She blurted “Oh never mind. I was making an in joke, ha, I thought you reminded me of someone.. I’m mistaken.. How terribly rude.. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Veruka.” “Miss Veruka Luxx, I can assure you, it’s a pleasure to be met. I’m Arthur Lilly.” I replied, but she was already lost in her workbook, writing fiercely. I could read paragraphs from the corner of my eye, from where I was sitting. The paragraphs were describing in full an artistic process, subconscious snapshots, perhaps an indulgent outburst praising the randomness embraced by the paper game, “consequences”. The “Exquisite Corpse” method was used by William Burroughs and many before him. I overheard her mumbling, something about synchronicity, and something in a language I failed to recognize, whilst preparing a short film required for an assessment. My contribution was just footage of life-prisoners from Alcatraz, back before the rock was broken and became yet another unkempt piece of tourist crap floating in the San Francisco Harbor, I thought it was intriguing, In between 1943 and 1945 surgeons experimented on the murderers of murderers, the rapists of rapists, Lobotomizing the prisoners and then put half of the test subjects in isolation with food and water and half in a cell with a wilting rose in a vase and no drinking water. The lobotomized inmates with food and water refused to eat or drink or sleep until they died, using all conscious energy to claw at the walls.…The other half, refused to watch the rose die, every time the thorns were bare and the petals fell, wilted, the inmates burst into a fit of grief, crying their eyes out until their tears found the cuttings…. and the rose returned to vibrant health, bringing a smile to their face, and that, right there, soppy bullshit aside, the prisoners with roses managed to see the flower through its cycle, like clockwork, when those petals returned, those inmates were found dead with a smile on their face. I liked the contrast, but spliced the footage poorly and overdubbed readings from the novel “The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.” Everyone in class was looking through the projection screen behind me with a thousand yard stare, and “Thank you Mr. Lilly. Now Mr. West, Your presentation is up next.” Mr. Peaslee boomed from his desk as I returned to my seat. My eyes were back on the strange Veruka as my new accomplice lent forwards and said softly, “Alcatraz Island has some incredible wildlife, but that rose is one of the rarest in the world….. One of.” I nodded, “There are some divine books on all kinds of sacred ornamental plants in the Vulshwaltz wildlife section, I have to return some after class and choose my reading for the week. Perhaps you would like to join?” I said, as charmingly as possible. She looked me right in the eye “Really?!” she said with a wicked grin. “I’ve not been too welcomed by the other students… I’ve been so lost while trying to get to know the Campus that the Library has thus far been untraceable! I need a new friend who can show me around actually..” Veruka laughed, I was transfixed by lust and just as I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could stumble over even one syllable, the bell rang out and class had been dismissed. “Oh, what!? You haven’t seen the Vulshwaltz Library at all yet!?” “No! I hear it’s like a literary maze though. I’d be delighted to get lost in the ‘History’ section with you anytime you like! If you’ve got no plans for lunch, you could even take me there right now, Mr. Arthur.” Her smile was intoxicating. I grabbed my school satchel, and we walked towards the door. “Well Miss. Luxx, only a fool could refuse such an honest request! Right this way my friend.” And with that, we walked down the corridor. Her pupils were gleaming behind her glasses, but for a second as they caught the light, In my mind, a golden scarabs reflection, scurried away. We stood still for a second as we exited the halls and I took great delight in Veruka’s excitement as it was her first time in this room, seeing hundreds and thousands of books, billions of pieces of peculiar information bursting at the seams. Dusty, leather-bound manuscripts, with instructions to decipher every language and symbol that is of use to mankind and even a few hundred pages of thus far indecipherable ancient tongues or perhaps the quotes of modern day secret societies, encrypted in plain sight. There are countless impressive Libraries in the World, But there’s only one of the “Vulshwaltz Vaults”. The lights hang down from the ceiling in glass flowers, downward like Belladonna Atropa flowers. I’m not sure if the “Deadly Lampshades” are there because of the irony, that old saying that everyone who works in a Library goes “mad as a Hatter”, or simply because the architects of our massive University had some, dare I say, questionable influences? “oh my goodness! Those Nightshade light fixtures are something out of Bella Lugosi’s wet dreams! Ahah!” Miss Luxx grinned in astonishment. “One almost wishes they were real, except for the fact that we would all be dead!” A cold, stern voice hissed back “They ARE real” the voice continued “and you ARE dead precious.” Of course, I knew this voice to be our very own, very proud, and equally VERY strange Librarian, Mrs. Nancy N. Escher LaTrisk. “I’m sorry?” Veruka said slowly. “The Flowers are real. They’re as real as any other lampshades, don’t you know?” Explained Mrs. LaTrisk, taking a sip of her tea “and you must be dead my dear! The last of Mr. Peaslees’s students never got to see graduation because they were all bored to death!” she said, turning the hourglass on the desk in front of her upside-down. “Mr. Arthur Lilly! I was under the impression your mother taught you manners!” Mrs LaTrisk was smiling at me. “OH! Of course! This is my new classmate and I’d have to say I’d take her as a friend over most of the chaps, Miss Veruka Luxx! I see you’ve spotted our humble Librarian, Mrs. LaTrisk!-“ “My name is Nancy Neri Escher LaTrisk, The boys call me Mrs. LaTrisk, But you can call me Nancy darlin’, Seeing as I’ll be calling you by your first” There was an awkward silence, at which point Mrs. LaTrisk drank some tea and exclaimed “anyway, Busy busy, always work to be done..” and she turned her attention to a copy of ‘Hidden Faces’. “oh yes, Mr. Lilly, your order arrived yesterday. It’s on my desk next to the typewriter” A brown paper satchel contained my new copy of ‘The Strange case of Dr. Jeckll and Mr. Hyde’. “Magnificent! Gracious Mrs. LaTrisk” “Righto, Well.. my oh my.. strange woman. Arthur, Is there anywhere we could sit and talk in private?” Miss Luxx blinked rapidly as a cool breeze swept through the room. As we walked deeper and deeper into the cacophonous life sized maze that Mrs. LaTrisk refers to as the “Bermuda of Books”, we found ourselves indeed lost in the history section. Veruka was pointing out a small window in the wall; she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small gold telescope, and beckoned me to have a look, directing my gaze to a plume of smoke funnelling out of a chimney in the most beautiful house on mount Titan. “Exquisite telescope Miss. Luxx, Where did you get it?” I said, intrigued. “Oh this is one of the smaller ones; I have a collection of telescopes in my study.” She looked through the eyepiece “I like to keep the fireplace on while I’m at Vulshwaltz so when I get back all tired it feels like home.” “That’s where you live?” my jaw dropped. “You live in a mansion?” “My grandfather’s in hospital so I’m taking care of the property. You should come and have a few drinks with me tonight. Otherwise it’s just me, the animals, and a big empty house...”

Chapter two 

-Perpetual Vermin in the Illusion of Time and Space- “Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau.“ I fumbled for notepad, attempting to look as if I were paying attention. The lecture was nearly over, and the bell would allow our dismissal from class no doubt very soon. I sat watching the clock hands go sloooowwwwllllyyy around from the corner of my vision, scribbling on my page a crescent moon, and the more I scribbled, it seemed the lecture were as if I was listening to it from a great distance. The blood drained out of my head, the ceiling pushed towards the sky, along with a room full my peers rendered brain-dead while the tables where they sat began to stretch and contort like a perpetually elongating hallway. A half a minute could last two million years.. Perish the thought. Sometimes I wonder just what exactly Salvador Dali mind had the persistence to remember behind his wild eyes as they observed a slice of camembert cheese melting in the sun. I glance quizzically at the empty chair to my right, “where in the hell is she?” I wondered. Her absence made me oddly uncomfortable. The divine and peculiar Veruka Luxx been my best friend for more than year now, but she remains as much of an enigma as when I first came to know her. Veruka and I, one could rightfully assume, shared a peculiar fascination in what would be most certainly considered taboo by the majority of our society. Veruka has a profound affection for Taxidermy, stuffed and preserved animal corpses, not to mention her absurd obsession for the languages and customs of ancient and lost civilisations. Our interest in all living creatures was naturally mirrored by our fascination for the “process of death”, the afterlife, the before life, and the possibility to reanimate the corpses of the deceased shortly after dying, using a customised injectable solution. We had killed, maimed and also reanimated the bodies of several rabbits, stray cats, rats, and guinea pigs, some even with promising results if the subjects managed to survive the process of animation for more than a few minutes. We have been a tad over absorbed in our little projects recently, and the nature of these experiments warranted my cause for concern. Luxx and I spent nearly all of our spare time engaged in “Staring at the bottom of the fountain of youth”… Yes, I suppose that’s one way to phrase it. Among other things her devotion to the subject of reanimating a multitude of deceased creatures knew no bounds, which fuelled my fascination and desires to assist her secret studies and to cover our trails all the more, from anyone whom might happen to have otherwise stumbled across our secret laboratory. Both Veruka and I were honorary students at the Vulshwaltz University in the town of Atlas, a rather expensive college, with infinite halls, chandeliers, libraries, top of the line science equipment (which we had slowly constructed our laboratory from, one beaker at a time, considering we were so trusted by Dean Allen Halsley himself, that he authorized us to stay behind to clean, autoclave and pack away every single piece of glassware unattended after classes, and the school had so many resources they didn’t appear to even ponder all the bits and pieces of “written off” laboratory hardware that the faculties staff would immediately replace.) Between the windowpanes were the endless paintings spaced perfectly evenly across the tall walls of the corridors, depicting everything from the Salem witch trials, The sun god Ra making his rounds in the minds of Egyptian painters and sculptors, and more typical of a white collar institution, images of decadent Kings and Queens from centuries otherwise mostly forgotten (all of them remarkably pale or blood red in the face, It often bemuses Luxx and myself to liken King Henry VIII’s face to that of a plump tomato ripe to burst. God awful inbred monarchy.) I look up from my scribbling, and she’s standing right next to me snickering at my absent mindedness, I wonder how long she had been standing there? The classroom is completely empty, and the clock tells me that the bell rang out about 15 minutes ago.. “Ground Control to Major Tom!?” She said with a smirk. “It’s time to go” “Where on earth have you been!” I croaked, flustered. “You scared the shit out of me, I thought something must’ve gone wrong” “Well” Luxx rolled her eyes, for a moment I could see my pupils reflecting back at me in hers, and a shiver went up my spine. “I’ve finally tracked down a recently deceased Human subject on which we can test my new formula.. Grab your things.” Her smile was both unsettling and comforting. We cleaned the science room, we cleaned the condenser, separatory funnels, catalyst reaction vessels, test tubes and various beakers, and using the key that the Dean entrusted us with, we opened the Haz-Chem safe, removed a couple of necessary precursors and once the classroom was packed up and tidy, Miss Luxx steered my attention to her unusually playful state of mind. We soaked in the evening as we began heading home bound, the place I had come to know as home, our humble abode, a sprawling property which Luxx was taking care of for her grandfather while he was in hospital. From the dust to the trees which touched the clouds, to the house that we had been using to conceal our gruesome experiments on deceased creatures which we would catch and put to death before attempted reanimation of their cadavers, sometimes yielding no result, sometimes a few unnatural flinches and as with most of our more “fortunate” incidents the creatures would turn rabid and rip their own bodies to pieces, after attacking anything in sight… But we pushed on, Luxx insisted that it was a simple matter of getting the right blend of synthetic compounds into the next formula, and something told me she was right. We left Vulshwaltz by foot, and with every step, the sun would sink deeper into the horizon, until at last we scaled the base of the mountain. It wasn’t long at all before I could see 54 rue du Chateau. The finest piece of architectural indulgence on the whole of the mountain, I bet her grandfather must’ve been proud, having built it by hand, brick by brick, brushstroke by brushstroke. Obviously, it was both mine and Veruka’s favorite place in all of Atlas, except for the Cemetery and the Library at Vulshwaltz. Overcome by dizziness, I was quick to catch my breath but for a peculiar moment, I almost thought these feelings of Deja Voo were rising to my attention as a hint that maybe this, right now, could all be just a dream. Then I remembered that even nightmares are more inviting than what lays in wait. As Miss Luxx explained what would be our plans for the evening, I unpacked our bags and polished a new glass beaker I had stolen for the lab. We headed upstairs for the attic, and my dear friend grabbed a spoon from the kitchen. Like ruby wine in flickers of the moonlight, I watched her lips tremble as she spoke. She weighed out precisely a quarter gram (250 milligrams to be exact) of our new silky powder and mixed it up. Luxx jabbed the needle in my arm and pulled back red, as I volunteered to Ginny pig our new batch of Amphetamine Salts. Suddenly I could feel a lightning storm pounding through my temples, as all of the blood rushed to my head, Luxx gave me a sickly smile, there was no denying we were both high as all fuck and I could not follow most of what she was saying because she was talking so fast and her eyes were utterly intoxicating. She stopped speaking mid-sentence, seemingly out of nowhere grabbing me by the neck and before I could blink she had pushed me up into the corner of the Attic, and with an incredible lust, our lips locked, and tongues entwined. My heart must have skipped a seismic thud, for this is the first time we stepped beyond the boundary of friends, and essentially the first time I had seen Luxx’s passion flare up for anything that still had a heartbeat. “Well, that certainly got your attention. Hah!” She smiled. I was breathless. “Work first, fun later, Hmm?” She looked me up and down. With that, she turned on her heels and took me to the false wall we had fitted in-between the cluttered, dusty Attic, and the hidden door to our surgical laboratory. She opened it and flicked the lights, revealing a lifeless figure stretched out on a long white table. Luxx, I could tell, was getting terribly nervous about something. The recently deceased human subject that Veruka had acquired was a frail old woman, whose face was extremely pale and the shade of blue that her lips had turned indicated that she had been dead since at least this morning. “Well well well! This is charming Luxx! Just fucking charming!” I mocked. The smell of necrotizing flesh was already near unbearable. “And what the fuck happened to her I wonder??” Luxx cleared her throat, “Well, hmm. It has been a long day indeed. Her family live not a great distance from here, I’ve known her son Edward for many years. As I was picking through my books before our late afternoon science class, studying the lineage of Queen Nefertiti when all of a sudden there were tremors on my doorstep accompanied by the deranged howling of what I presumed to be a badly injured German Shepherd. I rushed outside to find the howling was coming from an old woman writhing gruesomely in the mud on my driveway.” Shaking her head, Miss Luxx beckoned for one of my cigarettes. “I recognized the unfortunate Witch as Edwards mother, phoned his uncle immediately to alert him of the situation and ask if I could be of any medical help, as she was by now curled up twitching on my porch, grasping for dear life. He told me that she has been slowly going mad for years and by his voice… Well I could tell it had been driving him to drink, because he was slurring his concerns and at the same time attempting to hit on me. So as the family could not contact a competent doctor because of the particularly fatal strain of Flu that’s becoming somewhat of an epidemic in town recently, and screaming and delusional as she was when she arrived, the old woman appeared to assume an almost catatonic state of consciousness all in a matter of minutes, at the same time I could hear snoring on the other end of the receiver so I furiously hung up and carried her inside to my guest room, soon she was fast asleep after seemingly having made a miraculous recovery from her primitive psychotic episode.” With the upbeat melancholic chirp of a pessimist, I butted in “….And then?????” with an eyebrow raised above a bloodthirsty smirk, almost puzzled by my own sincerest solemn sarcasms, Luxx sighed “Her son Edward was suddenly knocking at the window, he said nothing except that he would stay by her side no matter what… Knowing I could trust Edward not to snoop around the house, I was beginning to ready myself for the back to Vulshwaltz, because I just needed your comforting presence after the intensely unexpected chain of events, by now I knew I was too late for class, but that was the lowest of my priorities. The incident seemed to reach an almost level of calm, but at that exact moment, the phone rang just as I was leaving home…. all I could hear was static noise and maniacal laughing in the earpiece….. Shrugging it off, I hung up just as Edward eerily called to me from the guest room. He emerged looking as though he had already long since mourned for his dear mother’s sanity, almost with a sigh of relief he said softly that she had just then passed in her sleep. I hid my smile behind gritted teeth… Mentioning that his uncle has already drunk away his inheritance, Edward also happened to mention, to my utter delight, that her final will declared that after death, her corpse was to be donated for the purposes of science, and because Edward has been a close neighbor for years, it goes without saying that he had already become well aware of my overachieving at University, The backlog of Anatomical Knowledge that propelled my status from a nerdy exchange student to an ‘Honorary’ Teachers Pet, not even mentioning the Deans trust in my ‘responsibilities’, …anyway, you can guess that it wasn’t very long at all before I had convinced Edward to go home to try and get some rest. He said his farewells under the impression that I had already arranged a hearse to Vulshwaltz’s medical research facility…. But after he left, I just hauled the lifeless bitch upstairs and rushed into town to find you so that we may finally take our experiments to the next frontier of reanimation…. To bring about the strange state of existence known as “Life” back to a completely rigid, non-responsive, breathless human cadaver…… “ The lovely Veruka Luxx burst out into hysterical laughter, unable to wipe the smirk off her divine face. Slightly disturbed, and still unable to stop thinking about Luxx’s soft and tender lips, all the while trying desperately to ignore the smell of the dead woman whom we were about to attempt to bring back from the spirit realm, to once again, in some post-mortal fashion, walk among the Taxpaying, Booze-Addled piles of flesh and bone, most commonly recognized as the “Living”. Apart from not being much good for conversation, the main difference between that of the “deceased persons” and of their more animated, opinionated, compulsively breeding counterparts, the “Living persons”, is simple. One has completed their cycle and has joined the “Land of the Dead” for the rest of eternity, while the other is still absorbed in the comparatively temporary distractions of day to day humdrum human emotions; From Serenity to Fear, From Kinship to Solitude. How fucking poetic. I’m to sober for this. Too much is never enough… My thoughts were racing. The air seemed to be getting thicker… “Hmm… The body’s whereabouts shouldn’t arouse any suspicion as long as no-one else in Atlas knows about her death, and provided her family doesn’t speak to anyone regarding her disposal requests” I said hastily “which I imagine they would not have any need to mention as a casual conversation topic to anyone of importance…. then we’re in the clear… Quick thinking by the way, my darling.. Any fresher and you could skin the fat off her and sell it down the butchers as offal.” I scoffed. Smiling dryly in acknowledgement, her eyes met mine and then looked quickly down at the tip of a .3 ml syringe that she had filled to the brim with a concentrated solution of her new “embalming concentrate” as we had deemed them), and I began preparing a large vein on the side of the woman’s neck for injection, as the solution had to enter the blood stream as CLOSE to the brain as possible. Luxx impatiently yet precisely performed the injection while I checked the cadaver for any vital signs of life. We waited for an hour, and Luxx mixed and injected more solutions into the subjects’ neck relentlessly. Just as we were preparing to admit failure, call it a night, and throw her corpse into the incinerator, without a seconds notice the old woman’s eyes darted open WIDE, and she let out the most ear-drum piercing blood curdling screams, wailing and screeching imaginable, far too unearthly for any human to possibly conjure the sound in their most depraved nightmares, let alone the breathless lungs of the dearly departed. Suddenly the undead subject stood up, froze stiff again, and fell on the floor with several liters of blood rapidly gushing out of her eyes, nose, mouth and ears. I gasped, unable to muster a word, and was frozen with fear. Luxx just shook her head, rolled her eyes and groaned with failure, she snapped. “Fuck.. Fuck.. Fuck… I think perhaps next time we should wait, at least another hour, before re administering the formula. I’ll put the incinerator on so we can dispose of her remains quickly.” Luxx leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek. I stood, bewildered, horrified, and shivering. “Oh.. What a waste” I blurted, Naturally questioning my beautiful associates mental stability, but as my faith in her was still unshaken by the gruesome occurrence, I began to question my own sanity… As Veruka turned up the furnace to its highest setting, near 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, she hummed along to an unknown yet strangely familiar tune, and the impromptu cremation of our elderly lab-rat was complete…… not much is left of that wrecked atrocity save a red hot pile of ashes. Attempting to appear un-phased by the evening’s festivities, I mopped up ankle deep pools of fresh human blood from our laboratory floor, as thoughts of what consequences lay in wait for us if we were ever to be caught grew steadily more grim and unavoidable, all the while, Luxx’s near total and complete disregard for such consequences proceeded to add entire Galaxies of increasing volatility to the already crumbled fault-lines of rationality and common sense… I was trapped aboard a sinking ship of her obsessions, pulling me into an Ocean of demise that was overflowing with my own poisoned curiosity’s, and it would be Veruka herself, who unwittingly sealed my fate with a kiss…. Run, Rabbit, Run… Because when you’re walking such a very fine tightrope of morality, whilst attempting to survive on a steady diet of endless hedonism, there is simply no time to slow down.. On that note, Veruka and I sat by the fireplace, drinking tea into the morning. Something I can’t shake about the look in the old bats eyes, embedded into my memory, will forever gnaw at me. I’ve seen that soul sucking glare before. For a second I was lost in the void of her pupils, the cry of the storm, and as I looked out from the old woman’s vacant stare, I actually was looking up at myself the moment blood poured from her every orifice. I was shocked, trembling, sweating, and whiter than a sheet. Looked as if I’d seen a ghost, a fucking Kodak moment... With every second, it seemed further in the past, until all I saw was my drug-devouring Morticia Addams, My Venomous Vixen…. Veruka was snuggling up next to me on the rug in front of her fireplace, and I feel her jab another shot of speed into my arm…. No warning…!?!??!!!!!! ….my vision trembles wildly…. Before I could even think, she is laughing and taking off her dress. Always an ice-cold intellectual machine; a vixen, brunette, green eyes and spectacles…. Even with a frozen heart like hers, I’d still be willing to bet my life that she could keep me warm in Hell…..